A ghost and a French marquis wander through the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, encountering scenes from many different periods of its history.

Closely based on Franz Kafka's book "Das Schloß", the movie shares the same action on a land surveyor who is called to a village to do a job that no one seems to have ordered. Once there, he takes up the struggle against bureaucracy emanating from the castle.

Vasily Kutuzov, the namesake of the famous commander, ends up in a mental hospital because of his talent for making up jokes. Everyone in his family had this gift, and many suffered because of it. The authorities didn't like that the Kutuzovs were bothering people. Vasily's neighbors in the ward are all famous people who left a mark in history. So he amuses them until the doctors decide to cure him of this "disease"...

An orphaned boy unlocks terrifying memories from the “kinderheim” concentration camp upon attending a trial of collaborators.

Once in a strange theater, the hero tries to understand the laws of his life...